Working the system

Saeed finally showed up and he immediately started to look for answers. He didn’t take a number. I remembered that on one of those visits a few years back, he found a government employee who pulled various numbers from the machine and sold them throughout the day at a premium. For about 3 bucks we were able to go from being 98th in line to fourth.

This time around Saeed wasted no times with numbers. He didn’t really talk to me, which is strange, because he is usually hard to shut up. Instead he just looked around the office, trying to gauge which worker might be most receptive to our needs.

He found a woman with a chador who I assume he thought might be agreeable to his flirts. She checked my file in the computer. Still no barcode.

He tried another window and finally went to the desk of the guy who seemed to be the supervisor. The guy found my file, “It’s set to be mailed today.”

“We want to pick it up, we don’t want it mailed.” Saeed told the guy.

“We never give them here. It’s a law that they have to be sent by mail.”

Saeed nodded and we walked out.

We headed towards the mail center of Iran’s main passport office. Young military conscripts were carrying in crate after crate of envelopes to be sent across Iran. There was no chance we’d find mine.

Saeed told me to wait outside and he went in. Five minutes later he walked out with a huge grin, giving me the thumbs up, a symbol that until recently in Iran meant the same as the middle finger does here, but times have changed and now it’s ok. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but judging from Saeed’s fresh optimism I felt like I should be more relaxed.

We sat and waited. An hour went buy and it started to rain lightly. I told him I thought we were wasting our time and that we should leave. “Leave? I paid that guy 50,000 touman (about $53.75,) we’re not leaving until you have a passport.”

We had finally found someone who would accept our monetary advances. This was a great sign. At 2:30 the guy came out and said, “We can’t find it and we’re getting ready to close for the day.”

Pissed, Saeed headed back into the main office and went upstairs. When he came back, there was a military officer with him carrying another ten envelopes. One of them was mine.